ORLAND PARK – Cook County Commissioner Sean Morrison is calling on Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot to stop politicizing the current COVID-19 crisis the state is facing.
"It started last week with the controversial decision to move forward with the March 17 primary election directly in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic which led to a nasty exchange between Governor Pritzker and the Chicago Board of Elections (CBOE)," Morrison said in a press release Monday.
The exchange Morrison was referring to occurred last week after the CBOE contended the Governor refused their urging to seek relief from the courts to reschedule the election because of public health concerns.
"The governor’s dispute with the CBOE was followed by a volley of combative and sarcastic tweets from Governor Pritzker aimed at President Trump accusing the President of not providing federal assistance to Illinois with Mayor Lightfoot also joining in on the nasty twitter exchange," Morrison said.
"Do the governor and mayor honestly believe their incendiary public behavior will create positive results for our state? Creating a public fight with the President and the federal government at this critical moment is nothing short of foolish," he asked.
“I’ve heard from constituents who feel there’s too much negativity coming from the governor and mayor right now. The public bickering is not reassuring our residents, it’s actually providing an element of fear and it’s quite concerning,” Morrison said.
At a time when cases and fatalities from this pandemic are on the rise across Illinois, this kind of petulant behavior from our leaders does not instill confidence in their ability to lead. Residents from across our state – and across the country for that matter – have made it quite clear that this is not the time for playing politics, especially publicly.
“Finger-pointing and name calling by Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lightfoot solves absolutely nothing except for trying to score some cheap political points. We need steady, effective and focused leadership and they’re not providing it,” said Morrison.
Tackling this monumental crisis will take cooperation from everyone, he went on to say, from all levels of the public sector, private sector as well as all residents.
"But the hands-on leadership and execution starts at the local and state levels of our government. The state and city were already facing a litany of disastrous fiscal issues before the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic and now those issues (and others) will undoubtedly worsen," Morrison – one of the board's few Republican members – said. "Finger-pointing and name calling will not expedite assistance from the federal government nor will it solve the massive fiscal problems that lie ahead."
Moving forward, Morrison said he hopes our leaders will engage in a productive manner with the federal government, the private sector, and all other vital entities in this unprecedented public health and economic battle. Now is not the time for political grandstanding.
"It’s time for leadership," he said.
